We were illegally arrested for defending ourselves
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When Swamiji held a press conference at the ashram, in 2012, we had to face a huge attack from one of the Chief editors of Suvarna 24x7 News Channel, called Ajit. He was attempting to take Swamiji’s life, by trying to go up to him in the middle of the press conference, with a packet of anthrax powder in his hands. The media mob turned a riot inside the hall, where Ajit and his group began to get violent and attacked us. We began to drive them out of the hall, and to take the entire matter outside, away from where Swamiji was.
In the middle of this, the police was completely unhelpful. In fact, instead of registering our complaint against Suvarna Channel, they registered Ajit’s complaint against us! We were simply trying to defend ourselves against their attacks, many of us were severely wounded from their assaults and had to be hospitalised.
One of the female Sanyasis, Ma Nithya Shantananda Swami, was being physically attacked by police officers. She was being pushed and pulled by them, and they were forcing her to get into the police van to arrest her. I went to help her, and a woman constable manhandled me, pulling and pushing me as well and threatening me to come to the police station. They pushed us into the vehicle, and took us by force to the police station. They did not give us a proper explanation, only saying that they were arresting us for “attacking” Ajit and his gang.
Finally, we had to go to the Magistrate office, where we were signed out on bail.